On a boring weekend afternoon, while flipping through the myriads of channels that are being broadcasted today (though very few of them have watchable content), I came across one which was screening a movie from the 80s, The Burning Train. I have watched this movie before, more than once, and no wonder I sat down to watch it again. Directed and Produced by the Chopra clan, this high budget movie is B.R.Chopra's biggest flop. Even though the movie boasts of a very good start cast, storyline and music, it surprisingly found few takers.
Every time I watch this movie, I feel it was ahead of its times. Taking a break from the romance and revenge centric plots of the movies of those times, this was one of the earliest thrillers, a la SPEED, of Bollywood movies. Not only does the movie boast of a good storyline, it has also been well directed and well researched. One of my biggest cribs with the Bollywood movies is that they are very poorly researched and amateurish in their portrayal of the real life situations. The problems and the solutions shown in the movie are intelligent and well thought of. To cite a couple of examples, I'll have to write a synopsis of the movie.
The movie is about an Indian Railways engineer who wants to design a locomotive capable of hauling a train between Delhi and Mumbai in 12 hours. (28 years since the move was released, it still takes 17 hours for our fastest train to cover that distance). His prototype is accepted and six years later, the locomotive is ready for its inaugural run. But a competing colleague's jealousy results in the locomotive losing its drivers and the vacuum brakes. On top of that, an act of negligence in the pantry results in the train catching fire. So as the 'Burning Train' hurtles past the stations and the countryside on the Delhi-Mumbai route carrying thousands of panic stricken passengers with it, the entire railway staff goes into an overdrive to save the passengers and stop the train. Some of the solutions that have been suggested to stop the train are as follows:-
Every time I watch this movie, I feel it was ahead of its times. Taking a break from the romance and revenge centric plots of the movies of those times, this was one of the earliest thrillers, a la SPEED, of Bollywood movies. Not only does the movie boast of a good storyline, it has also been well directed and well researched. One of my biggest cribs with the Bollywood movies is that they are very poorly researched and amateurish in their portrayal of the real life situations. The problems and the solutions shown in the movie are intelligent and well thought of. To cite a couple of examples, I'll have to write a synopsis of the movie.
The movie is about an Indian Railways engineer who wants to design a locomotive capable of hauling a train between Delhi and Mumbai in 12 hours. (28 years since the move was released, it still takes 17 hours for our fastest train to cover that distance). His prototype is accepted and six years later, the locomotive is ready for its inaugural run. But a competing colleague's jealousy results in the locomotive losing its drivers and the vacuum brakes. On top of that, an act of negligence in the pantry results in the train catching fire. So as the 'Burning Train' hurtles past the stations and the countryside on the Delhi-Mumbai route carrying thousands of panic stricken passengers with it, the entire railway staff goes into an overdrive to save the passengers and stop the train. Some of the solutions that have been suggested to stop the train are as follows:-
- The Railway authorities ask the passengers to access the engine and pull the emergency brakes. But how to get this message across to the passengers. Remember, we are talking about times when there were no mobile phones. The Central room has lost contact with the engine or the guard carriage. The message is relayed through AIR (yes our good old All India Radio) and sure enough one of the passengers happens to hear the relay though this solution doesn't work as the emergency brakes have got jammed due to the explosion.
- To stop the fire from spreading and engulfing the train any further, the connector between the coaches is removed to remove the medium for the fire to spread. Elementary but where Bollywood is concerned, even the elementary goes for a toss
- Another one is to build an elevated embankment to slow down the train and then blow up the coupling between the engine and the coaches. The coaches will be stopped and the engine will collide with the crash pads but the passengers will be saved. Sounds Credible?
To all those who haven't watched this movie, I would definitely recommend it. And to Bollywood...anyone up for a remake?
